Rent Trial and Error (1962)
3.4 of 5 from 51 ratings
1h 16min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- After nearly 40 years of waiting for his big chance, Wilfred Morgenhall (Peter Sellers) is given the case of defending Herbert Fowle (Richard Attenborough) who is accused of murdering his wife (Beryl Reid). Despite Fowle's insistence of guilt, Moregenhall will not let go of the opportunity to plead his client as innocent and be a star in the courtroom.
- Actors:
- Peter Sellers, Richard Attenborough, Beryl Reid, David Lodge, Frank Pettingell, Tristram Jellinek, Audrey Nicholson, Eric Woodburn, John Waite, Patrick Newell, Henry Kay, Frank Thornton, Eric Dodson, Madge Brindley, Ian Curry, David Drummond, Victor Harrington, John Junkin, Jim Tyson, Frank Williams
- Directors:
- James Hill
- Producers:
- Dimitri de Grunwald
- Writers:
- John Mortimer, Pierre Rouve
- Others:
- Alan Bates
- Aka:
- The Dock Brief
- Studio:
- Prism Leisure
- Genres:
- Classics, Comedy
- Collections:
- Cinema Paradiso's 2023 Centenary Club: Part 1, Richard Attenborough: A Centenary Special Instant Expert's Guide, A Brief History of Film..., The Instant Expert's Guide
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Reviews (1) of Trial and Error
Comic Satire. - Trial and Error review by Steve
Understated satire on the British legal system based on a play by former lawyer John Mortimer, who went on to write Rumpole. A quiet, clean living drudge (Richard Attenborough) has murdered his wife. For his defence, the court appoints an empty headed, elderly barrister (Peter Sellers), for his first ever case.
The play was a two hander, but in the film there are flashbacks to scenes of conflict between the mild mannered husband and his raucous spouse (Beryl Reid). He is browbeaten and numbed by domesticity. Whereas she laughs like a hyena at everything. Every single thing.
The dialogue between the accused and his counsel is splendidly dry, like little crackles of irony that spark in every sentence. Sellers and Attenborough make a superb comical team. Dickie's hangdog, henpecked husband is perfect. In the context of all this deadpan drollery, the wife's cacophonous ribaldry is riotously, laugh-out-loud hilarious.
It's not all that cinematic. It could have been done as a radio play. And the fizz doesn't quite last until the fadeout. But the sly script is deft and sharply sardonic. The humour sounds like a precursor for the comedy double act of John Fortune and John Bird. It's a cultish curiosity and a quintessentially British experience.
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